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Yep, that's right. It's that time of year again
I have always wanted to make a Typhus costume. Last year around Haloween I had the idea to make this dream a reality, but my execution was a bit.. well poor. Cardboard = bad choice. This year after going to the local Tampa ComicCon I got bit by the cosplay bug once again. Doin it right this time though with EVA Foam, thermoplastic & plasti-dip spray. Yeah!
So. Let's begin..

First we have the helmet


waitwait, backup a bit. Let's start with last year's attempt:

So there was the helmet


Then both pauldrons



and of course the scythe


Sadly, I no longer have the scythe. I sold my house & left it in my old room. I can only imagine the looks on the faces of the new owners when they found it It was off proportion anyway. And the blade was made with foamcore covered in ductape. For the new scythe I plan on using worbla for the blade & probably find a small sappling for the staff.
The cardboard while all good & well for making the initial form just wouldn't cut it in the long-run.

So, this go 'round...

I started off forming the helmet the same way I did with its cardboard predecessor by taking a rectangle of foam, folding the botttom edge in so it has a ronded edge, then curved the 2 side edges around to almost meet at the front to make the barbute form. I ended up sewing one piece of black twine to keep them together yet not be too visible. Then it was just a matter of bending & forcing the top into a curved shape for the top & cutting the 2 wedges for the eye slits.

For the horn I actually took a piece of angle-iron & glued it to the inside of the helmet then up through the top of the helmet and through the horn. So it has a solid metal core connecting the horn to the hellm. And yes, those are PVC endcaps for the breather pieces. All-in-all I think I've spent about $70 on PVC alone. You'll see why here in a bit.

Next was the pants

I've looked through a lot of 40k cosplay images & one of the toughest things to get right is the proportions. Especially with those classic ridiculously over-sized greaves. And especially with terminator armor. Space marines are roughtly 9' tall. And terminator armor is even taller. I am not 10' tall ('bout 4-5' shy roughly) so to rectify this I had an idea to make Typhus' legs constantly in the crouching position while I am standing upright. To make this happen, what I had in mind was to have a crossbar of PVC on the waist with hinges connecting to a pipe for each leg that stick out at about a 45 degree angle then connect to another hinge and another pipe going back at a 45 degree angle to make the shin which connects to a hinge for the ankle.

Like so...





Next, I modeled the feet



and attached them to the legs



The PVC coming down from the knee hinge attaches to a hinge on the outter side of the ankle going into a hole through the foot. I added some layers to the feet on top of the hoof assembly. That then attaches via a strip of EVA foam that runs inside the foot across the top of my foot which sits in a shoe I glued into each foot to another piece of PVC that is glued onto the other side of the inside of the greave.

Next, I added some detail to the legs



You may recognize the skull on the left knee. It was one of the skulls from the cardboard pauldron that I repurposed for the spike for the left knee. Also added skulls in the pipe ends for each bolt on the exterior hinges on the legs. As a last step on the legs I'm thinking I might actually get some truck tire tread & glue it to the bottom for the soles of the feet. That may require something a bit more solid than hot glue.

Adding layers to the helm with plasti-dip



This stuff is awesome! But it smells VERY strong! Like spraypaint, acetate & sharpie all together! Next to the helm you can see the progress on the gloves. Basically I took a pair of hockey gloves & molded points on the fingers & spikes on the knuckles, then cover it in layers of plasti-dip until it looks like it's supposed to be there.

Next up is the pauldrons

aaaand we don't have a clip of the production shots. It appears I forgot to upload that from my phone. Typing this from work right now and I get fired if I'm seen using my phone. PCI compliance is awesome! Anyway, enough about that. I'll upload the production shots of the pauldrons later. For now I do have a pic of the completed pauldron (form-wise anyway)



Complete with a bic lighter for size reference. For the 2nd pauldron, I'd like to go with something closer to the Typhus artwork rather than the model. Instead of the Fly of Nurgle, I'd like to do the gaping maw face Typhus has in the pic in the CSM Codex. For this, I have a boar jawbone set aside & may even sculpt the rest of the maw face out of latex or resin.

That's all I got for now. Soon I'll be getting thermoplastic & more foam. Torso & Nurgle pipes/Destroyer Hive is next on the list. That & a pair of smaller sholders to attach the pauldrons to.
All CC & tips welcome as this is the first time I've tried something of this level.

Update time!

So here are the production shots I forgot from yesterday for the pauldron:

Pauldron pre-form



Started with 2 sheets EVA foam, hot glued together then cut notches in to bend it to curved form. I actually ended up cutting a lot off the top, you can see from the sharpie line.

Pauldron taking shape



And here we have it after the wedges have been glued together. Cut & trimmed a few areas to get it into the right form. I had previously cut large 1" thick half circles out of styrofoam which I've layered with gorilla tape to give them more structure & stability and then glued the foam on once molded into the curved shape.


This morning I started on a pair of spaulders to rest the pauldrons on.







Dual purpose addition. This way I have something to steady the oversized pauldrons on & also have an alternative in case I don't feel like walking around with quarter spheres on either side of my head. Eventually I plan on installing 2 1.25" PVC sockets on top of each of them to lock in with 1.25" pipe coming down from the pauldrons. Added the skulls for fun

And here it is inside the pauldron:



Tomorrow I get my worbla

Oh yes! Moar please!

AMAZE!

Looks great so far, like Moltar said

Thanks for the inspiration! I am working on a Techpriest costume and was totally stumped on material to make various pads, gears etc out of, turns out Home Depot has big 4 x 7' pieces of EVA for 17 bucks with free shipping

So, not only is the armor looking fantastic so far (love that helmet!), I can see you are a man of impeccable taste thanks to the Hellsing curtain "count-as"

Keep'em coming!

Wow this is absolutely awesome and I cannot wait till this is finished! Makes me hope that somewhere in the near future someone will cosplay the rest of Chao's great champions (Kharn,Ahriman,Lucius,Abbadon)!

 Moltar wrote:
Oh yes! Moar please!

MOAR indeed! Always great to get praise from a dakka veteran. Thanks Moltar! And yes, more is on the way. I just got a bunch more foam!

 More Dakka wrote:
AMAZE!

Looks great so far, like Moltar said

Thanks for the inspiration! I am working on a Techpriest costume and was totally stumped on material to make various pads, gears etc out of, turns out Home Depot has big 4 x 7' pieces of EVA for 17 bucks with free shipping

You gotta be effin shklitting me! It's friggin $19 for a pack of 4 here in the states at Home Depot. I found em at Harbor Freight for $10 for 4 but man.. I hate this country sometimes. Hope to see a thread from you for the Techpriest when you start it.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:
So, not only is the armor looking fantastic so far (love that helmet!), I can see you are a man of impeccable taste thanks to the Hellsing curtain "count-as"

Keep'em coming!

I have a confession to make... I still haven't gotten around to watching Hellsing Been meaning to, but I have.. no.. free time... says the man who is building a suit of foam. Yeah I'muna get on that. But thank you none-the-less!

 y0disisray wrote:
Wow this is absolutely awesome and I cannot wait till this is finished! Makes me hope that somewhere in the near future someone will cosplay the rest of Chao's great champions (Kharn,Ahriman,Lucius,Abbadon)!

Funny you should say that. I'm trying to talk my friend Mark O'Khorne into making a Kharn, but he's hesitant.

Aaaaaaand update!

MOAR FOME!



Different pattern on the other side of this one. Whatever, it's half the price.

Bigger Arms



Decided to beef up the arms a bit. The previous ones as you can see were a little small. Not even really as big as space marine sleeves. This will look MUCH better with terminator armor. You can also see the gloves a bit better in this shot. What I did there was cardboard claws (pyramids for the knuckles) taped on with gorilla tape then covered in plasti-dip

Left Pauldron Mawface WIP



This... is going to be interesting. Not sure how exactly I'm going to accomplish this part, but I think I might make a rough sculpt of the shape of the head using foam, then cover that in some kind of latex or resin to finish the mawface. Then a bigass horn on the forehead







oh yeah I almost forgot I played a match against Mark's WE army today.

I tried burying Khran in zombies.



but he went straight for Zuul my Maulerfiend




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And problem solved!

"Hey there old Halloween mask, whatcha doin?"

"Oh nothin, just sitting here wishing I could be more than just a Hallow- Aaah!!! Oh my god what are you doing!? Stop cutting my face!! Aaaaahhghghl, there's so much blooood!"



Yes!

Think I might wanna do all this after the thermoplastic though.
p.s. Yes, I actually spoke that dialog to myself as I was cutting up the mask. ... I have problems.

AAHHH!!!!! that is freaky looking, in a very appropriate way

Don't worry, I talk to all my inanimate objects while I am working with them incl minis.

Question, what are you using to seal the foam before painting?

You sir are awesome! Subbed!

This is great, subbed! Is your friend really named Mark O'Khorne? Cause that man was destined to be a 40k player from birth if it's true.

 More Dakka wrote:
Question, what are you using to seal the foam before painting?

Funny you should ask about that. I got my worbla in & put it on the left pauldron last night. First time using thermoplastic so it's a little messy, but from what I understand & witnessed a little bit last night it becomes almost like dough when you heat it up enough so I can smooth that out. In short, thermoplastic. I'll eventually smooth out some areas, but really he's a Chaos lord so it doesn't need to be perfect & shiny like a grey knight. I'm thinking of using expanding insulating foam to literally fill in a lot of the cracks & if I can trowell it before it sets could possibly make some interesting shapes. I need to find a bullhorn of some kind for the horn coming out of the head.

 Insane Smile wrote:
You sir are awesome! Subbed!

Why thank you! Wubbed! DWAAAAAAHH-WUBWUBWUB-WUWUWUWUWUWUWUWUWU-WHAAAA-WHAAA-WUB-WUB WOOOOOWWWW!!!! bassline

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
This is great, subbed! Is your friend really named Mark O'Khorne? Cause that man was destined to be a 40k player from birth if it's true.

Nah, just the name he made for the forums. Quite ironic though as he only ended up playing a Khorne army because I gave him the 'zerkers I had leftover from a chaos starter kit. You have a good idea there though. I think if I ever have a daughter I'ma name her Angrath!

In other news, sadly I don't think I'll be able to make the pauldrons removable. PVC is a bit of a tight fit for them to be repetitively removable and they just weigh too much. So I'm just going to glue them on to the torso. Possibly separate the torso horizontally so I have a chest piece & a gut piece.

Having recently been bitten by the cosplay bug myself, this is coming along quite nicely!

I'll look forward to seeing if tully completed. 40K cosplay is vastly under represented so it's good to see an ambitious project underway.

Thanks,
Tom

I may have done something awesome.. or something awful. I can't tell yet.



So I applied the worbla to this pauldron & that came out okay, while a bit warped. My first time working with it. The I sprayed expanding foam insulation around it thinking I would be able to mold it like clay.. yeahnotsomuch. It's more like custard or beer foam. Then I passed out watching TV & the foam expanded overnight. I should be able to go with what I planed for an alternative if the foam sculpting didn't work which is to carve away at the expanded foam until I get more of a sculpted look. The crab claws worked nicely though, I'm pretty pleased with that.

Oh yeah and this



If you can dodge a blight grenade you can dodge a ball!

Now I just need to find an equivalent to a Tandy leather shop since they went out of business so I can find a real bull horn for the horn :/ Jesus, you'd think with all the dead things I have I'd have a bull horn

Thass all I gots for now.

Armor looks really nice man!

Steer horn from Tandy

20$ is a little steep, and it might be awkwardly heavy. You might be better off with a plastic version air brushed to look better.

Nice progress!!! Yeah I have been reading that people use thermalplastic but seems like a LOT of messy work.

I'm thinking something like Seal Krete might work as a substitute, it's a liquid waterproofing product, just brushes on with a couple hours drying time.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Armor looks really nice man!

Steer horn from Tandy

20$ is a little steep, and it might be awkwardly heavy. You might be better off with a plastic version air brushed to look better.

Holy poo in my ceramite pants! They DO still exist! Yeah, I think I may just go with a foam horn & addd detail to it to make it look like.. not.. foam. Yeah. Thanks for the link though! I may go that route after all.

 More Dakka wrote:
Nice progress!!! Yeah I have been reading that people use thermalplastic but seems like a LOT of messy work.

I'm thinking something like Seal Krete might work as a substitute, it's a liquid waterproofing product, just brushes on with a couple hours drying time.

That or resin coating with mesh underneath or plasti-dip seems to be working pretty well for me. I think thermoplastic is better for smaller items with armor like edges, flourishes or just plain smaller pieces & not so much to coat an entire suit with. Ah well.

Yea, Tandy Leather is pretty awesome I used to hit them up all the time for my armor making needs. Apparently they bought up a lot of smaller, local leather shops in the late 90's, early 2000's, and some went pear shaped. Possibly because ordering online is often cheaper even with shipping. I dunno.

Is it wrong to tell another man you look forward to seeing pictures of his horn?

only if you want it to be ;}
Wait, no! This is a Nurgle project, NOT Slaanesh!

Dang, full of win!

i cannot wait to see how this ends!!

this looks amazing... any chance of seeing you in the gear as it stands? i'd love to get an idea of the proportions of it.

-skrall

Takin a brief hiatus on the project while I'm visiting family in Missouri. Sadly, while my sister has a barn with a mammoth donkey, 2 pigmy donkies, 2 goats, 2 peacocks & god know how many cats there are no free steer horns to be found :( prolly just gonna go with the Tandy horn.
I'll be posting some pics of me in the armor soon after I get back on Monday. Currently rethinking the attachment of the pauldrons. First I had the idea of making the pauldrons removable but that just wouldn't work given the weight of the pauldrons. Then the plan was to permanently affix them to the top of the torso. But now I'm thinking that might be too rigid & I'd like to have them more connected to my arms so they move with them.

What about something like back-pack straps and buckles attached to the chest and shoulder pads? That way they're attached at the top for support, but also have some give to move.

I think I found a method that will allow me to make the pauldrons removable & still provide more stability:



Decided against the worbla & going with polyurethane coating.



And I was able to use some of the worbla scraps for the horn:



Still got a lot of sculpting & trimming to do on the foam though.

Woooo...lovely stuff. Keep up the great work!

Small update today, but fun:



Eyeballs! YAAAA!

Polar cup top painted on the inside with UV paint

Nice to see you posting her too

Like what you have done so far very much!

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite threads...keep it coming as I am looking forward to your end result .

 Finnlock wrote:
Nice to see you posting her too

Like what you have done so far very much!

Thanks! Yeah, I actually started here. I think it was your work on the SoB *ahem* excuse me, I mean Adeptas Sororitas (official codex n all now ) armor that was the reason I found Obscurus in the first place. Your work is amazing Finnlock!

UPDAYTES TIMEZS!

I noticed the mawface pauldron actually sticks out a little further than the head so had to trim it down a bit.





Thinkin I might add on to the pauldron edges too, possibly balsa wood; maybe the worbla I ended up not using on the pauldrons. They just seem a little puny next to the rest of the pauldron now.

Anyway, enough about pauldrons!

Today I started the torso



Barrel Tummy!!

Then the chest piece seemed a little small so I beefed it up a bit



Then I glued it all together & heatgunned the fugg out of it!





And now, I've started on the soles of the feet so I'm not tromping around on EVA foam which I'm sure would end up bad. I originally thought of using truck tire tread, But decided that would be WAY too heavy & difficult to cut.

So I went with floormats



That's all for now. I'm also currently applying a layer of PVA glue to the tri-skull pauldron which will then get another layer of plasti-dip, then polyeurothane coating I got in the mail today. Wanna get this done at least structurally before Halloween so I can give it a test run! 8)



P.S. Recent discovery. My armor now requires a squire. Yes, that's right. Typhus is too fat to apply his own armor :/ Next time I have a guest over I'll have to see if I can get a pic of me in the suit.

P.P.S. I couldn't help myself :}